![]() ![]() Agoraphobics avoid being out in public and prefer confined spaces whenever possible to shield themselves from these situations. This kind of behavior is evident in Bartleby – he prefers not to run any errands out of the office and in the latter parts of the story prefers not to move at all from his “hermitage” (Melville, 2014). “Agoraphobic fears typically involve characteristic clusters of situations that include being outside the home alone being in a crowd or standing in a line being on a bridge, and traveling in a bus, train, or automobile” (Bressert, 2017). The change in eating habits and what the narrator calls “all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man”, can be viewed as Bartleby depressive nature.Īgoraphobia and Anorexia Bartleby’s “propinquity to walls” can be a symptom of agoraphobic behavior. His eating habits changed and has no nutrition value, “He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I never eats a dinner, properly speaking he must be a vegetarian then but no he never eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts” (Melville, 2014). ” He losses interest in things he enjoyed doing like copying and spends most of the time staring at the wall outside his window. From the story Bartleby exhibits symptom of a deprived nature clearly described by the phrase “dead-wall reveries. Some of the symptoms associated with it are persistent sad, anxious, or empty’ mood, loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities appetite and/or weight changes (Baxter et al., 2014). These are signs associated with people suffering from mental illnesses.ĭepressionDepression is a disorder that is widely spread in today’s society. During the course of the story Bartleby’s condition worsens – he loses interest in doing his job, he does not want to leave the office and does not eat. This shows the society intolerance for people with disability, particularly for people suffering with depression and mental impairments. In Mitchell and Snyder’s Narrative Prosthesis, the phrase could be labeled a subconscious cry for help. He cleverly brings out the ignorance aspect of the society to recognize. This can be seen through his preferred phrase “I would prefer not ” (Melville, 2014). He exhibits several mental disorders such as depression, anorexia, agoraphobia, etc. Looking at the story, Bartleby may have developed his mental illness time as a clerk in the Dead Letter Office, a grim place where letters go to die. This paper will focus on the psychological interpretation as presented through the eyes of an ignorant narrator mental illness –Bartleby being an example of a mental illness. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Herman Melville’s 1856 short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”, presents the mentally troubled title character and it is hard to imagine the multitude of meanings it contains and the interpretations it inspires. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. Sealts, Jr., and the authoritative Northwestern-Newberry text of The Piazza Tales. This Penguin Classics edition features the Reading Text of Billy Budd, Sailor, as edited from a genetic study of the manuscript by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. ![]() ![]() Also including The Piazza Tales in full, this collection demonstrates why Melville stands not only among the greatest writers of the nineteenth century, but also as one of our greatest contemporaries. In these stories, Melville cuts to the heart of race, class, capitalism, and globalism in America, deftly navigating political and social issues that resonate as clearly in our time as they did in Melville's. In the sorrowful tragedy of Billy Budd, Sailor the controlled rage of Benito Cereno and the tantalizing enigma of Bartleby, the Scrivener Melville reveals himself as a singular storyteller of tremendous range and compelling power. Annotation: A new, definitive edition of Herman Melville's virtuosic short stories American classics wrought with scorching fury, grim humor, and profound beauty Though best-known for his epic masterpiece Moby-Dick, Herman Melville also left a body of short stories arguably unmatched in American fiction.Series Title: Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Ser. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |